Oobleck

So many of our students thrive on sensory experiences.  Their hands need to be touching, feeling, manipulating and moving all the time.  Last week when we were learning about pigs, we mixed up some "mud" for them to play in.

The mud is really "Oobleck"-- a weird, strangely intriguing corn starch mixture that looks like a liquid, but feels like hardening cement when you touch it.

You can roll Oobleck into a ball like play dough, but the minute you stop playing with it, the ball appears to melt like a hot scoop of ice cream.

We added a pile of pigs to the muddy pig pen, and the kiddos spent an hour digging for them and rolling them around in the "mud."

When you drip Oobleck on to a table, it looks like a wet spill.  It cleans up like a little bit of play dough.

We always tell our kiddos, "It is good to get messy at school!  When your hands are messy, your brain is busy thinking!"  As much of a disaster as this looks, though, it rinses off of their hands with just a little bit of water-- no soap or scrubbing necessary.  The containers and tables (and chairs, and floors, and shirts, and socks...) just wipe clean with water, or when the oobleck dries up they can be brushed off.  I promise-- it's not as bad as it looks!

Do your kids crave sensory experiences?  Give this a try!  If you're hesitant, wait for a warm day and try it outside.  I bet that even as an adult, you won't be able to keep your hands out of it!

Have fun playing and learning with your children today.